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I need everyone's help.  Please forgive me ahead of time for the long post.  This is my first post and I need advice or reassurance.  Not really sure.

Hi All! I am new to the forum and new to being the spouse of a diagnosed ADD partner, though we have known for some time that something was "different" about my dear husband. I have started this post about a dozen times because I want to be respectful of my husband but also give an accurate account of life as it is.

I've learned of codependency. And I see my past patterns in all of these threads. If my life was a football field, I'd always be down at his end of the field - never at my end, and never sharing the 50-yard line. Reading books to help him, modifying my life to handle him, giving up my day to help organize him, recovering from his unexpected 180 of mood and attack-invalidate-stonewall-abandon abuse cycle.

I am completely fed up and cannot do this much longer. My younger child's ADHD symptoms have exploded in the last six months. Nothing seems to be helping much- he has manic type temper tantrums the last two mornings, he bosses me around and is manipulative, he is continually defiant and hits and doesn't listen at all. Then he does this angry yelling thing and literally tries to control just about every situation for his benefit. Both his brother and him joke around play hitting me, and sometimes the younger one does actually hit me on purpose.

I'm married and have three step children. I basically raised all of them and they do know who their father is but he has never played a role in their life. So here it is; my wife has been diagnosed with ADHD, and her daughter and son.  

This will be hard to explain but it is a pattern I have noticed over the years.   Here is an example from today.   We were looking at an area of the lawn we want to turn into a garden.   It faces south and on the right side there is a tree.  I have been watching this spot over months to see where the sun is.   It turns out the right 1/4 of it gets much less sun.   Today I explained this to him and he would not acknowledge my observation.   Instead, he started explaining the science of how that could not be.

My husband is ADHD and I'm not; we've been married for 17 years and have 2 children. He told me last night that he wants to leave the marriage. I'm devastated and am shaking.

During the summers he does a lot of boating with his boating friends. They're a community who likes to tie their cruiser boats together and camp all weekend. It seems to provide the perfect sensory overload that makes him feel at peace: lots of people around, music from each boat, drinking, partying. He said he wants to find someone who is more like him, who likes to party like that.

My wife and I have been together for 5 years (Married 1.5). I was diagnosed with ADHD just after we were married.  The diagnosis explained a lot of the problems we were having and some of my feelings for many years. Fast forward to now and we are still having problems. While I am working on myself (albeit slow progress), I don't feel like she wants to take any ownership about her role in our dynamics.  (I do plenty of this to the point where I am always feeling like the "identified patient.")

Does anyone else feel like their ADHD partner has a hard time keeping their young children safe and not needing supervision when with them?  My husband has endangered our child several times and because of him she got second degree burns on her hands when she was just a baby.  I always have to be watching him and making sure he's not doing things like leaving sharp knives out on the counter where she can reach them, etc.  I have had to step in several times over the past 4 years because he has done something dangerous that could result in her being seriously injured or worse.

So I am at the end of my rope this weekend with DH's inability to recall pretty much ANY conversation we have, either just the two of us or with the kids.  My oldest son turns 18 tomorrow.  He had prom last night, graduates from high school next Sunday.  He is VERY full of himself.  About two months ago, this child started teeing up the "when I turn 18 I can do whatever I want" conversation.  I mostly blew it off with humor--like "yep-good luck with that" type of thing but the more he brought it up, I had enough.  This same child leaves for a gap year in Costa Rica in September.